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Selen
Selen is a lush and heavily exploited garden world located in the Radak Cluster. Though it is home to various kinds of carbon-based, oxygen-breathing levo amino acid life, the planet has been owned and administrated by the Volus ever since its discovery. Its surface was split into hundreds of variously sized lots and rented out to many corporations from across the galaxy for their exploitation. Over the years, the corporate activity turned Selen into the most central world in the region. History The planet Selen and its system was first reached by volus surveyors a few centuries ago. The system was discovered to be the home to two other mass relays leading to important regions of space in the inner regions of the Attican Traverse. That, along with the system's location inside a volus colonization cluster, made Selen a valuable world for the Protectorate. There were a few complications though. Selen, though a lush and beautiful garden world by Citadel Standards, bore home to carbon and levo amino acid based life, making the world uninhabitable for the volus themselves but also for their turian protectors to whom any world with dextro-based life that the Protectorate discovered was so far ceded. Unwilling to give up control of such a valuable system, the volus decided to go with the most profitable solution. They divided Selen's land into lots of various sizes and leased them out for independent colonization while still running the global administration by themselves from off-world. Soon after bidding opened, corporations from around the Milky Way expressed their interest. After a few months of fierce competition the market finally closed and the winning bidders, ranging from mining corporations seeking to mine Selen's rich crust, to interstellar tourist giants aspiring to build resorts on the world's serene coasts, were finally announced. In addition to all the heavy industry and tourism facilities that were constructed on Selen's colonization lots, many bidders set up spaceports, aiming to cater to the large influx of ships coming and going to the system as well as manage the flow of mined ore and goods produced on the planet to other worlds. Geography and Environment Selen is a warm, tropical world with a very pleasant climate. Almost all of its nine insular continents are completely covered in dense jungle. Higher attitudes that are closer to the poles are covered in vast plains covered savanna-like growth. This is where most of the population and industries are housed. 64.8% of the planet's surface is covered by small, shallow oceans with constant warm currents circulating the water globally. Its crust is unusually thick and dense for a world of this type, with heavy concentrations of near-pure iron and very dense rock sheets. Beneath these hard layers though, lay countless veins of valuable minerals in staggering amounts. This has made Selen a prime mining target but the nature of its crust has left only the ones who can afford costs successful. All the continents are interlinked with large networks of tropical islands Many lagoons have formed in the shallow waters in-between, baring home to many diverse species of marine life and colourful corals-like reef structures. These islands are also where the world's tourist resorts and amenities have been built. Due to the strong tidal pulls of Kodalen, Selen sees rapid and often shifts in sea levels. This results to the draining of entire lagoons, exposing vast sandy beach areas that stretch for miles. The poles have no ice caps and the equatorial jungles, while still lush and damp, are largely avoided due to the uncomfortably high temperatures and air moisture. Only mining operations are present in these lower latitudes and all personnel is housed in well conditioned structures. Local fauna is generally non-aggressive. Many local species have grown accustomed to the alien visitors over the past few centuries and have even learned to scavenge for food near settlements. Law and Government The Volus Administration of Selen controls the planet from Jovitt, a domed city on Selen's lone satellite, Kodalen. Jovitt is also where Selen's Central Stock Exchange, Credit Bank and System Traffic Control Station are housed. From there, the Administration oversees corporate activity on all colonization lots and manages the imports and exports. The Volus, along with extremely harsh export taxes, have also put in-place unusually strict environmental regulations and taxation policies. Though the measure might have sounded noble and ecologically responsible at first, it was merely done to preserve the quality of each colonization lot and keep its resell value high, should a bidder abandon their operations on the planet. Abandoned colonization lots, often along with the equipment and infrastructure left behind, are constantly auctioned to new bidders, forcing large groups of people constantly come and go and keeping Selen's landscape and demographics ever-changing. With this strategy, the Volus have managed keep corporate operations within Selen's ecological capacity and continue to exploit the world for centuries. Mineral deposits are still abundant and the massive influx of traders and toursits is still far from a hiatus. The Administration, taking advantage of a loophole in Citadel Legislature, allowed the laws for each colonization lot to be managed by its respective owner. The free global legislation, combined with the competitiveness of all the corporations present on Selen, transformed the world's society over the years, making it very much like a terminus world.The only thing that bounds this liberty to a degree is the Administration's 'Global Constitution' which merely sets the outline of basic sapient rights that no introduced law on Selen can violate as well as some basic transaction standards, structural compatibility protocols and a short list of banned items. Even security management and law enforcement is left solely to the corporations' control, leading to an uncomfortably high presence of mercenaries in what is, technically, deep Council space. This tactic has removed a lot of the restrictions that companies would otherwise have to adjust to and, in turn, broadened the corporate profit margin to such an extent that the corporations did no longer mind the harsh volus export taxes or the environmental restrictions. Industry and Economy In general, Selen is considered to be the region's prime hub of trade and production. Selen's surface is covered with large mining complexes, refining and ore processing centers, power plants, manufacturing complexes and other types of heavy industry, that often make use of 'indentured labour forces', courtesy of Selen's free legislation. The world's thick, iron-heavy crust contains almost mythical amounts of natural resources. Layers of thick rock and pure metal have made drilling procedures notably challenging. Many smaller companies have gone bankrupt while trying to mine Selen using less-than-cutting-edge equipment, causing them to quickly give up their lot lease and abandon their operations, leaving all of their equipment behind for the next bidder. The more powerful corporations have set up entire start-to-end production lines. This allowed them to mine the necessary materials, refine and process them and then use them for the manufacturing process right away, on the very same site. This cut down the production time and cost for many heavily-demanded goods as well as increase the shipment rate. On Selen's more isolated tropical island chains, the tourism industry saw rapid development. Many prime-class resorts have been built on the crystal white shores of the planet's warm lagoons. Selen's large moon, Kodalen triggered spectacular tide cycles, causing the water to shape the landscape and create some of the most breathtaking rock formation in the galaxy. These natural wonders, coupled with Selen's relatively non-aggressive fauna and the praised quality of the resorts, still draws many people to the planet annually. Infrastructure The large structural complexes all over the planet are powered by endless stretches of wind turbines on Selen's plains as well as geothermal power generators, all managed by few of the galaxy's dominant corporate energy giants , which have struck gold by supplying this power-hungry colony. Long networks of hydroelectric dams harness the raw power of Selen's many fast-flowing rivers, providing civilian settlements with power and water supply. The oligopoly in this market has lead to the drop of water and power prices, somewhat improving the living conditions of permanent residents. Transportation is provided by a globe-spanning network of maglev rail lines elevated on series of pillars, high above Selen's impenetrable jungles. These high speed trains are mostly used for the transpiration of cargo and raw materials from mines and refineries to factories. Civilian transportation is catered by a world-wide shuttle transit system. Society and Demographics Corporate competition soon drove prices to record-low docking fares, attracting more and more freighters and transports from all over the galaxy and with them, people from all races and backgrounds. The civilians that took residence on Selen eventually settled themselves around the world's thriving spaceports eventually forming small, urban areas dispersed over Selen's surface. Though these shady prefab-assembled cities could never be compared to the bright and beautiful spires of worlds like Illium, they still have just as much life and energy in them. People who have spent time on Selen often give it the name of 'the Poor Man's Illium' as a reference to the planet's relatively reasonable prices and the workers class citizens that make up the planet's population. Corporations often bring workers from other worlds, offering them a safe journey for themselves and their families as well as accommodation and sustenance in exchange for providing labour services to the corporation for a certain number of years. The total colonial population numbers to 201,593,080 people. The dominant species on Selen are the salarians, closely followed by the asari. They make up 44 and 41 percent of the world's total population respectively. Another significantly large minority are independent batarians who have for a long time run businesses on Selen and chose not to abandon them after the Hegemony's retraction from the Citadel community. It is one of the last remaining noteworthy concentrations of batarians outside of the Terminus and Hegemony space. The rest of Selen's population is made up of mostly elcor, hanar and volus minorities, along with a rapidly growing human presence that is quickly overtaking the others in numbers. Though turians are seen often on the planet, very few have taken permanent residence on Selen. Most of them are corporate officials, managing company assets on the planet. Though nothing but good publicity comes from the planetary newsfeeds, the companies that do their business on Selen keep the sensitive information shrouded in a veil of mystery, giving rise to conspiracy theories throughout the extranet, ranging from the manufacturing of illegal goods to the conduction of unethical experiments and even AI development. The world is more often that not, described as 'never being what it looks like'. The rumoured existence of secret science facilities under the turquoise oceans that are usually advertised on Selen's holiday brochures is often used as an example. All official government representatives have promptly ignored these rumours, treating them as nothing more than figments of paranoid people's imagination. Particularly so, the turians who are often characterized as the indirect beneficiaries of Selen's collective colonial output. Category:Citadel Space Category:Locations Category:Terminus Category:Volus